Since the coining of the term "Design Patterns" in the software engineering context, and specifically as related to object-oriented application, there has been an increasing emphasis placed on the relevance of patterns in successfully designing object-oriented software, by the recognition of patterns that can be applied for recurring problems. In this paper patterns are applied in a business-oriented environment, resulting in a framework that provides the core architecture suitable for use across a family of business applications. In designing this framework we take a "framework-centred design pattern" approach [Pree95, p63], with a number of patterns being applied as the application framework evolves. The language in which our framework is implemented is Java.